


Romanticus Interruptus

by foolish_mortal



Category: Big Wolf on Campus
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-26
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-06 01:04:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/412999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foolish_mortal/pseuds/foolish_mortal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merton and Tommy try to fall in love, but the supernatural world keeps getting in the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A very belated birthday present for theotherdibbler.

The first time they went out on a date—a real date at a local Italian restaurant that was more upscale than the college pizza joints they were used to—they were interrupted before they could even get to the tiramisu. The date hadn't been going well: Tommy's new shirt itched, Merton had managed to spill his antipasto all over himself ten minutes in, and they'd been arguing about who was supposed to pay the bill. Merton's nervous babbling was in full force, and for once Tommy didn't mind because at least it covered the uncomfortable silences. It was the first time they'd had uncomfortable silences. They'd sat through hundreds of monster movie marathons and long drives back to Pleasantville in long restful stillness, but there was something about a formal date that made him feel prickly and sweaty at once.

"And anyway," Merton continued. "Critics tend to glorify the written word over its translation onto the screen, so I would say that while her _Thought Monster_ was a great pulp story, the _Fiend Without a Face_ adaptation wasn't too shabby."

"Mhm," Tommy mumbled and wondered how long it would take for their main courses to arrive. The wolf was chafing at the confinement of his tie and suit jacket, the cramped table in the corner next to the window, and the tiny portions that didn't have enough meat. Tommy had been brought up to be suspicious of Italian places that didn't give you your body weight in portions. The place had a good reputation though, and the internet had assured Tommy that the food always had the right amount of spices and enough garlic to kill an elephant. Dammit, Tommy hadn't even thought about the potential for garlic breath. He should have ordered a salad.

And god, he didn't even want to _think_ about kissing right now, or he was going to officially freak out. Sure, Tommy had kissed girls before, but this was Merton, and Merton wasn't just anybody. He was Tommy's best friend, his partner in crime, and Tommy couldn't stand to fuck this up. Tommy ran an appraising eye over Merton's uncharacteristically neat hair and the dark sports jacket he was wearing over a Cradle of Filth t-shirt. Unlike Tommy, he looked comfortable. He looked _good_ , and who'd have thought that it had just taken some fitted shirts and a newfound sense of confidence in college for the wolf to sit up and pay attention to Merton's scent and the lines of his waist when he entered a room.

 It was great that the wolf was finally on board with the whole Merton thing, but Tommy now had to spend extra effort to keep it from randomly jumping Merton whenever it felt like it. It didn't help that he and Merton were roommates. Tommy had woken up some nights to find himself fully wolfed out and curled up at the foot of Merton's bed like a puppy. Tommy thanked his luck that Merton slept like the dead and had never woken up.

Tommy was never quite sure what made his wolfy senses tingle when the figure passed by their window. Maybe it was the jacket the figure was wearing in the dense July evening heat or the way he hunched in his shoulders and started walking faster when the door to the Italian place opened and closed, sending a waft of rich red sauce and noodles spilling out into the street.

"Merton," Tommy growled and stood up, nearly knocking over his chair.

Merton stopped mid-sentence, a rare occurrence that Tommy didn't have time to appreciate. Because Tommy's life had a great sense of comedic timing, their dinners came out to the table right then, and they had to ask for boxes. They both slammed down their credit cards at the same time and left it for the waiter to sort out, and Tommy guessed that was one way to settle their argument about picking up the cheque.

Tommy pelted down the street with Merton at his heels, and the figure finally caught on that they were following him. Tommy was almost relieved when it ducked into a dark alley because that gave him the cover to wolf out. His tie strained against his neck, and he tore it off and threw it away, wishing he had a better way to transform in public. Superman had really known what he was doing with the phone booth thing.

Tommy put on an extra burst of speed and grabbed the figure by the shoulders and spun him around. The thing's face was like death, white and chalky in the flickering electric light in the alley. It looked like a man, but it wasn't. It hissed, baring its huge pointed canines and flaring its bloodshot eyes wide. Its mouth was dribbling with fresh blood. It must have just fed.

"Vampire!" Tommy shouted. "Merton!"

"Hold it!" Merton shouted. "Face it towards me!"

Tommy grabbed the vampire in a headlock. He started getting suspicious when the vampire struggled and actually managed to make Tommy break a sweat. Most vampire strength was nothing compared to his when he was in tip-top werewolf form. A vampire with the strength to match him had to be ancient.

He turned the vampire to face Merton. Something metal glinted in Merton's hand, and Tommy realised he had appropriated one of the restaurant's knives before they'd rushed off. Tommy had never guessed that petty theft could turn him on, but he suspected that wasn't something to bring up at the moment.

Merton stabbed the vampire in the heart with practiced accuracy and stumbled back with a crow of triumph. The vampire thrashed and screamed and screamed. And then shoved Tommy off and began to laugh.

"Seriously?" it said. "That isn't even an actual stake. Maybe if it had been made of silver."

"I knew that was a cheap restaurant," Tommy said.

The vampire pulled the knife out with a sickening crunch. It clinged to the floor of the dirty alley, and the vampire stepped over it towards Merton. "Or a crucifix," it suggested. "That would have been good too."

"I'm a pagan, you asshole," Merton spat with every ounce of his old bravado and didn't break eye contact, but he backed up a step. Tommy thought Merton really had to reconsider his priorities.

The vampire shrugged and came closer. "Sorry. No offence."

"None taken," Tommy replied and tackled the vampire from behind. "Merton, run!"

"No!" Merton said.

The vampire elbowed Tommy in the jaw and threw him off. Tommy bared his teeth and got in a lucky swipe with his claws. The vampire snarled, but the gash healed up before Tommy's eyes. Oh yeah, they were in serious trouble. "Merton, _go._ Find something that will stop this sonovabitch."

And then he didn't have time to talk because the vampire was all over him with punches that felt like his head was being slammed into a concrete wall. It must have given him at least a minor concussion because he couldn’t remember how long he and the vampire duked it out. Tommy remembered being lifted and thrown into a set of garbage cans at some point, if the week-old lettuce smeared in his hair was any indication. All he knew was that Merton was safe, and that was all that mattered.

"You can't keep this up forever," the vampire hissed at him. "I can feel you weakening. I am hundreds of years older than you, and you _will_ fall eventually. Then I'm going to find your friend and drain him dry."

"No!" Tommy shouted and tried to kick it in the ribs. The vampire grabbed his ankle and threw him to the ground. Pain flared up Tommy's entire left side.

"Tommy! Grab him!" Merton's voice drifted towards him. "I have an idea."

And Tommy wanted to tell him to turn around and run as fast as he could, because they couldn't defeat this vampire. The best they could hope for was that one of them survived this, and Tommy was willing to hold the vampire off till he dropped.

"Tommy!" Merton shouted again, and Tommy moved on instinct, tackling the vampire and pinning it down like he had done countless times at football practice. He could feel the vampire already wriggling away, and he just felt an odd detached disappointment that he was going to die before he and Merton even got to the kissing. He had been looking forward to the kissing.

Merton skidded to a stop with his takeaway box from the restaurant in one hand. He opened the box and grabbed a handful of pasta and sauce.

"You're feeding him? That's your plan?" Tommy shouted, but then Merton threw the pasta at the vampire, who began to scream and smoke where the sauce touched it.

"Garlic," Merton gasped. "Open its mouth."

"You're a genius," Tommy said and forced the vampire's jaws open. Merton poured the rest of the sauce down its throat, and the vampire let out a throttled scream and exploded into a ball of fiery dust motes. Tommy sank to the ground breathing heavily and clutching his ribs.

  


The hospital said that Tommy had three cracked ribs and a slight concussion along with numerous bumps and bruises. Tommy wasn't sure what lies Merton had spun to explain that away along with the garbage and pasta sauce all over his clothes, but Tommy found himself a few hours later freshly showered and sitting up in a hospital bed in a borrowed pair of scrubs with a tray of canned peaches and foil-wrapped chicken surprise on his lap.

Merton was sitting on the bed next to him and eating his steamed green beans, which he knew Tommy hated. "Now this is dinner," he said.

"Yeah," Tommy agreed, and when Merton leaned over to press a light careful kiss against Tommy's split lower lip, he thought that against all odds the date had been a success. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blame [saucery](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Saucery/pseuds/Saucery) and their Teen Wolf fics for the escalation of pop culture references and smut in this fic.

They stopped going on dates after that, because they figured they had been doing just fine without them. Tommy thought what technically counted as their two hundred and tenth date was starting to suck. They were both supposed to be at their graduations, Tommy for his bachelors in sports medicine and drama and Merton with a masters in chemistry. Instead they were in the old university cemetery trying to get rid of a poltergeist infestation that had been plaguing freshman housing.

They had figured out that the poltergeist was the ghost of a WWII era colonel named Amelia Parker of the U.S. Women's Army Corps. She had been an alumna of their university and her bones were buried in a mausoleum in the university cemetery. She had apparently died evacuating a hospital during a bombing raid. Merton had determined that they could only exorcise her on the day of her death, which incidentally happened to be the same day they were supposed to graduate.

So Tommy found himself trailing behind Merton carrying a salt shaker from the dining hall and wondering how he was going to explain his absence to his parents. His mother had showed up with a video camera practically glued onto her arm, and he knew she would be disappointed that she wouldn't be able to tape the three seconds it would take him to ascend the stage and take his little fake rolled up paper diploma from the dean. Merton had decided to skip graduation long before despite the school-sanctioned opportunity to wear what amounted to black occult robes because his skin didn't do well in the bright sun, and he could just go pick up his actual diploma from the office later anyway. Tommy didn't have the heart to ask him if his family would be disappointed that he was absent, if his family would be showing up at all.

"I still don’t know," Tommy said. "Doesn't it seem a little weird? She was a hero. Why would she want to hurt anyone?"

"Spirits tend to hang around when they have unfinished business," Merton said. "And if they hang around too long…well, sixty years is a long time. She could have gone a little crazy. Or something could be controlling her."

"I don't like the sound of that," Tommy said.

The cemetery was closed, so they jumped the fence, and Merton whipped out a map he had printed off the school website.

"There, that's the one," he said and pointed to a tiny building in the corner of the cemetery. A bronze statue of a woman in uniform was standing at attention in front of the door. The base of the statue had Amelia Parker's name, her dates of birth and death, and the inscription _'for valorous service and the utmost sacrifice.'_

Merton stopped in front of the door and waved. "Well?"

"Well what?" Tommy asked.

"Use your…you know, your werewolf powers and open the door," Merton said. "They look heavy. You think I can open them?"

Tommy sighed as he transformed, and it came out as a growl halfway. "Fine," he said and waved Merton away from the door. "You're lucky I lo—"

He stopped before he finished the sentence, and one of his canines nicked the tip of his tongue. It _hurt_ , and Tommy felt a few drops of coppery blood fill his mouth before the analgesic and natural compounds in his saliva closed the wound. It was one of the more useful properties about werewolves that Merton had discovered in his research. A literal 'lick your wounds' factor. Merton had started burning his tongue on his food suspiciously often after he found out that particular tidbit, which had in turn resulted in the two of them making out a lot on top of the dining room table. Tommy was A-okay with that.

That had landed them into trouble a few times, most famously when Tommy had volunteered their house for his fraternity's weekly Saturday brunch. To be fair, Merton had burned his mouth on the coffee completely on accident, Tommy hadn't expected his fraternity to come over early, and neither of them had realised they had left the front door unlocked. Tommy still couldn't look at banana walnut pancakes without cringing, and his grinning fraternity brothers always made sure to order him a stack whenever they ate at the local diner, because they were bastards like that.

Tommy glanced back to see if Merton had heard him, but Merton was too busy fussing with his book of incantations to pay attention, and Tommy breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't that he didn't love Merton. He did, _god_ he did. He and Merton had been dating for a year and a half now and had been best friends for much longer so of course Merton had to know, but Tommy had somehow never been able to say it. He didn't think they really needed to. Sharing life-or-death experiences with a guy had a way of defining a relationship in a way words never could. But Tommy still hadn't told Merton, and that sort of bothered him. He blamed the cheesy romance films he and Dean watched sometimes when the rest of the house was asleep. Tommy still swore to this day that he didn't cry at the end of _An Affair to Remember_ , and Dean still unwaveringly supported his claim. Dean was an awesome big brother.

The heavy mausoleum doors opened with a horrible screech, and Merton breezed by to begin drawing out a trap on the floor with the salt shaker and chalk. It just looked like a bunch of concentric circles with some squiggly lines to Tommy, but he assumed he knew Merton knew what he was doing. If the university had offered a degree in the supernatural and magical arts, Merton would have been on his way to getting tenure by now.

"Now we just have to summon her," Merton said and clapped his hands together. "Should be easy. Her bones are in that coffin."

Tommy leapt away from the thing as if it had burned him. " _Why is there a coffin in here?_ "

Merton gave him an exasperated look. "After all the things we've faced, don't tell me you're afraid of a few bones?"

"Dead people freak me out," Tommy muttered. Merton's expression softened a little, and he ran his fingers through the soft fur on Tommy's cheek. It felt really good, and Tommy found himself humming. He really had to stop turning into putty whenever Merton was around.

"Don’t worry," Merton reassured him. "I'll be done before you know it."

 They should have known better than to say that by now, Tommy thought, because Merton shouted a few strange words from his book and in the next second a woman with curly bobbed hair and an old WWII uniform was glaring at them from inside Merton's circle. She looked royally pissed, and Tommy wondered how easy it was really going to be for Merton to convince her to stop haunting the dorms.

"You must be Amelia," Tommy said to the ghost.

"That's Colonel Parker to you," the woman cracked back. "Don't get fresh with me."

"Yes, ma'am," Tommy answered back before he even knew what he was doing. Then Merton elbowed him in the ribs, and Tommy wolfed out a little more so that she could see his long claws and the points of his teeth. They had an efficient good cop-bad cop system to grill culprits when they caught them. Merton always wanted to be bad cop, and Tommy had to remind him which one of them was the werewolf. Enthusiasm and a steady appetite for campy 70s buddy cop shows only went so far.

Parker raised an eyebrow."Do you really think you're my first werewolf?" She put a hand against the invisible barrier of the circle and leaned forward. "You seem to be on our side, though. How interesting."

"It's a long story," Tommy said. "This werewolf bit me in high school. Merton and Lori and I just ended up—"

"We'll be the ones doing the interrogating here!" Merton cut in.

"Uh." Tommy glanced at Merton, who made a sharp go-ahead gesture. "Yeah. Yeah, that's right, lady!" Parker raised an eyebrow. "Um, I mean, ma'am." Merton elbowed him again. "Why are you destroying the freshman dorms?"

Parker looked surprised. "Destroying?"

"Don't even try to pretend," Merton said. "We've seen all of it: the flickering lights, the flying furniture. People have been hurt."

Parker sneered. "Where's your proof?"

"You used a sleeping girl's fingernails to scratch your own name into the wall," Tommy snapped. "This isn't a social call. We're asking you politely to leave or we're doing it by force." Parker's face was a mask of shock, and she didn't reply. "Colonel Parker? Do you understand?"

"It's him," Parker whispered. "That thing, the poltergeist. It's after me. It's revenge. It killed me once, but it didn't get my spirit. It's out to try a second time."

"Wait, a second time?" Merton asked.

Parker's dazed expression faded, and she glared at him. "Did you really think that hospital blew up in a bombing raid? It was miles away from the London Blitz. There wasn't an aeroplane in the sky."

"You've been running," Merton breathed. "All your postings across the European continent in under three months. They thought you were restless, but you were running from it."

And of course Merton had researched Amelia Parker's entire military history in his spare time. Tommy didn't even know why he was surprised. "What is this thing, exactly?"

"Not a thing, a man," Parker said. She reached into the breast pocket of her jacket and pulled out a little book to read from it. "When the Romans invaded Brittany, a soldier from their battalion betrayed them to a native tribe in exchange for his life. The tribe left him for dead in the woods. I found his spirit still roaming the woods when I was posted abroad and tried to exorcise him. He was old and powerful, and I wasn't able to erase him entirely. A piece of his spirit attached itself to the silver in my ring and followed me out. I kept trying to get rid of him, and he kept evading me. I suppose he saw me as his biggest threat to being sent back."

"Sent back?" Merton asked. "To where?"

"Traitors have a special circle in hell," Parker said.

"Hell doesn't exist," Merton replied.

Tommy decided to intervene before the conversation dissolved into a theological argument. "Okay okay," he interrupted. "But how did you know he was following you—"

"Tommy, your hand," Merton interrupted.

Tommy looked down and saw his hand had been idly tracing patterns on the coffin's smooth surface, using the curved tip of a claw to scrape into the stone. _Amelia Parker_ , it said.

Parker sucked in a breath. "He's found me."

"What—" Tommy started, and then blackness exploded in his eyeballs. He reeled backwards from the shockwave and landed hard on his back. When the dull disorienting buzz inside his skull cleared, Tommy opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by darkness that seemed to stretch out forever. Tommy wondered where he was.

"You're inside your own mind," Parker said, and Tommy sat up to find her floating next to him.

"Kind of dark and empty isn't it?" he asked and then added, "Don't answer that."

"You've been possessed," Parker said instead. "That's what he does, finds someone and possesses them."

"No." Tommy squeezed his eyes shut and tried to make himself wake up.

"You can't make him leave," Parker said. "Your friend might already be—"

"Don't," Tommy forced out and couldn't make the muscles in his shoulders and back unclench. "Just don't. There has to be a way. Merton's done exorcisms before."

"It isn't that kind of possession," Parker said. "It's a mesmer. You're his puppet."

"Plenty of things can break a mesmer," said Tommy, who knew maybe three, tops. "Fingernails from a hanged man. Um…true love?"

"I don't think—" she stopped when she saw Tommy's face. "Oh."

Tommy felt his face go hot. "Merton. We aren't…we haven't even…" And no, he did not want to discuss his sex life with her. "It's complicated."

"You're afraid of the werewolf," she said slowly. "What's yours is his, and you're afraid to share."

And yeah, maybe he was. Tommy knew that once the wolf got its claws into Merton (Tommy hoped to god not literally) it would never let him go, because the wolf was crazy protective and possessive and scared even Tommy sometimes. When the wolf played at being human, it played for keeps. He didn't know what it would do if he and Merton got around to doing the old horizontal ländler, because it didn't know humans were soft and fragile, and it definitely hadn’t watched the Sound of Music. It wouldn't understand that there were such things as privacy and personal space and taking things slow, that Merton was a young guy just starting out who wouldn't want to get werewolf-married till grisly death do us part. It wouldn't understand if Merton ever decided to leave or find someone else.  Tommy's heart almost gave out thinking about that last one.

"And what does Merton have to say about it?" Parker asked.

"I…haven't asked him," Tommy admitted. "Look, I don't think this is the best time—"

"You don't think he loves you too?" she prodded.

Tommy wanted to say yes. He wanted to, but the truth was that he had spent so many hours and sleepless nights worrying about his attachment to Merton that he had never thought about it from Merton's side. He remembered Merton jumping into his arms and hugging him when they signed the lease on the tiny off-campus housing that was all theirs for only seven-hundred dollars a month as long as they wanted it. He remembered how they had become 'TommyandMerton' to all their friends because people always talked about them together even when they were apart. He remembered Merton saying, "It's okay," when they were making out on the couch and Tommy reached for the waistband of his trousers, and then Merton saying, "Hey hey, it's okay," again more softly when Tommy had a panic attack two seconds later.

Merton had always been patient with him and unafraid of the wolf. Tommy had once almost taken off Merton's ear when he had wolfed out in the middle of petting Merton's soft ungelled hair, and Merton had waved away all of Tommy's desperate stammered apologies. "The wolf is like, the president of the Merton Dingle Fan Club," he said loftily. "I know it would never hurt me." Merton never freaked out when Tommy got a little too aggressive and pinned down Merton's wrists, left red finger marks in the crooks of his elbows. He ran a hand down Tommy's stricken face and said, "Don't worry, it's fine. I like it."

Tommy had never believed him. But maybe he should have given Merton more credit. Maybe he should have listened when Merton had never said anything at all and just looked at Tommy like he was Wes Craven marathons, blue raspberry slushies, and black eyeliner all rolled into one.

Tommy looked up and saw that Colonel Parker had gone absolutely still and was staring at him like she was waiting for something.

"Yes," he said finally. "I think he does love me. And I think…I think I'm okay with that."

He thought he caught the start of a smile across her face, but then the world flashed white and blinded him, and then suddenly he was back in a musty familiar darkness that smelled like dirt and old stone with the echo of a scream in his ears. He shook his head and tried to blink the whiteness out of his eyes, but spots went across his vision as if he'd been staring at the sun.

"Thank god that worked," Parker said.

"Tommy? Tommy!" Merton's hands were on his shoulders, his face, and oh god, Tommy's back was _touching the coffin._ He had to go home and shower and wash his clothes and possibly have a priest burn them. And then Merton was kissing the hell out of him.

Tommy suspected Merton had seen it in an old black-and-white film once and had a mind to tell Merton that he wasn’t some damsel strapped to the railroad tracks, but then he was not complaining, He was not complaining at all, because Merton was kissing him with intent, like he wanted to show Tommy with his mouth all the things they could have been doing if Tommy hadn't been so terrified of wolfing out and ruining everything. Tommy wondered where Merton had learned to kiss like that.

"Clark Gable," Merton said, and Tommy realised he must have asked the question aloud.

"Who's Clark Gable? And when exactly have you been kissing him?"Tommy asked suspiciously, and Merton burst out laughing.

"This is all very sweet," Parker said. "But I would appreciate it if you let me out of this damn circle and go somewhere else."

Merton scuffed out one of the salt lines with his toe, and Tommy noticed a second exorcism circle beside it. "You got rid of him!"

"Of course I did," Merton said, like defeating a thousand year old ghost was just something to give him an appetite for breakfast, but he was shaking and white as a sheet. "But he kept threatening to take you with him. And I couldn't…I didn't want to—"

"Oh for god's sake, get on with it," Parker muttered and disappeared in a puff of golden ash. And then a muttered, "Thank you, gentlemen," floated out of the empty air.

Tommy grinned and squeezed Merton's shoulders. "Sorry. Looks like you'll be stuck with me for a while."

"I sort of figured," Merton said. "What, with the wolves mating for life thing and all."

Tommy kissed Merton so hard that his lips went numb. "Then why haven't we been _mating_?" he rumbled.

 Merton pulled away. "Right here? In the mausoleum?" he looked impressed. "Tommy, I didn't know this was your thing."

Tommy thought he heard a small echoing voice from inside the coffin shouting, _not on top of my bones, you don't!_ and he was mortified at the prospect of having an audience, even a dead one. Especially a dead one.

"Come on," he said and gave Merton a slow smile. "Race you back home."

 

Merton was on him even before Tommy could open their front door. He shoved Tommy up against door like a professional linebacker and proceeded to conduct a thorough investigation of Tommy's mouth and jawline. Tommy had never been one to interfere with the spirit of human inquiry and let his head thunk back against the metal knocker. Merton was kissing him like they were two seconds away from doing it whether they were inside the house or not, and Tommy was having a hard time remembering why exhibitionism was a punishable offence. He managed to open the door behind them and got back to reassuring Merton he was alive via Merton's black thrift store skinny jeans so he didn't hear his family in the living room shout, "Surprise! Happy graduation!" until it was far too late.

Tommy turned, and an ill-timed balloon hit him in the face. Merton's hair was dotted with confetti, and with their faces red and their arms around each other, there was no way they could have said that it wasn't what it looked like, because it was _exactly_ what it looked like, and he was pretty sure his mom had got an eyeful of him trying to suck Merton's tongue out of his mouth when the door had opened. And that was officially the most awkward coming-out ever. Tommy was glad Merton hadn't let go of him, because he was pretty sure he would have fallen over without Merton's arms to balance him.

"Um, surprise?" Merton weakly offered to his own parents. Becky was standing with her mouth open.

Tommy's fraternity brothers burst into applause like they were at the godamn opera, and Tommy decided to look into career opportunities that involved crawling into a hole and dying.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I've been gone for so long. As some of you may know, I came out to my very Asian parents last month, and it was probably the worst experience of my entire life. The fallout made it difficult to stick to a regular update schedule.
> 
> To make it up to you, this chapter is a bit longer and smuttier. Because you're worth it.
> 
> This chapter references the S2E13 episode "The Manchurian Werewolf."

They moved to the Washington D.C. suburbs to live out the American dream: a white picket fence, 2.5 vintage Star Trek posters, and student debt up to their eyeballs. At least the fence was nice where it was still standing. They shared an unglamorous dun hatchback for their daily commute, but it was reliable and safe and had a dozen handy places to store extra cloves of garlic or a thermos of holy water. Merton's hearse had died a tragic death when its guts had literally fallen out, and Merton had mourned it for months after.

Merton was working for some green energy solutions start-up, and Tommy was full-time at a chiropractic clinic and volunteering for the local community theatre on the side. It wasn't ideal and neither one of them was raking in the dough, but Tommy started to settle in.

Their neighbours were friendly and totally normal, which Merton still didn't believe, but Merton was paranoid and made Tommy wear an amulet every time he went over to watch hockey and drink beer with Bob and Mary.

"Bob and Mary?" Merton repeated scathingly when Tommy told him. "Puh-leeze. What's their last name? Smith? Jones?"

It was Jones, but Tommy decided not to feed Merton's paranoia.

They lived in a town called Charmington that wasn't as tiny and insular as Pleasantville, but Tommy felt the same vibe of home values and good people. Merton had called that same vibe boring and conformist when they had first driven there to look at a house, but then he'd discovered that the town hosted one of the biggest annual horror film festivals on the eastern seaboard.  The town wasn't too bad with crime and supernatural activity and only improved once Tommy and Merton moved in. It was always useful to have a werewolf on the neighbourhood watch, as long as the neighbourhood wasn't watching _him_. There were already some sightings of a Charmington werewolf, and Tommy was grateful that Charmington, State University, and Pleasantville weren't pen pals, because there was a hell of a chain of evidence.

Tommy still went a little crazy during the full moon and went for one-man thousand meter dashes in the woods, but the parts where the wolf ended and Tommy began were blurring. Merton claimed the wolf was teaching him bad habits after years of cohabitation, but it didn't feel like he and the wolf were sharing a body or finishing each other's actions. He didn't feel like an extension or an instrument but rather the thing itself. When someone made the mistake of standing too close to Merton on a crowded bus, it wasn't the wolf that wanted to snap at them—it was Tommy. When someone at the clinic dropped a weight on Tommy's foot, his throaty howl of pain was all human, and he didn't feel like he was wolfing out in self-defence because there was no wolf.

Merton complained that he could never keep the laundry neat, and Tommy should have felt guilty about that, but he always had the uncontrollable urge to roll around on their perfectly made bed and rub his scent into the lavender-scented sheets whenever Merton put down a fresh set. He wasn't sure if the impulse came from him or the wolf, but he thought that he wolf had the greatest ideas sometimes.

Merton wasn't impressed. "You know," he said when he caught Tommy at it for the umpteenth time. "Most guys would just let me wear their class ring."

"Most guys aren't werewolves," Tommy pointed out and climbed out of their newly mussed bed feeling pleased with himself. His foot tangled in blankets, and Merton stopped to laugh at him as he fell over. On the whole, Merton was amenable to most of Tommy's weird werewolf quirks.

"Oh fine," he muttered when Tommy borrowed his clothes, but Tommy could feel the waves of amusement coming off Merton whenever Tommy wore a Helloween or Witchfinder General band shirt around the house.

"Don't blame me if you get an E. coli infection," he said at restaurants when Tommy ordered his steak rare, which Merton never let him get away with that at home.

"S'feels nice," Merton said drowsily when Tommy rubbed his face all over Merton's cheeks and throat to wake him up in the mornings. And then, "Ngh, beard burn," before turning his face into Tommy's shoulder and falling asleep again.

Really, the only thing Merton didn't like was marking. "No way! No! Down! Heel!" Merton shouted the first time Tommy nipped at his throat and worried the soft stretch of Merton's skin with his teeth. Merton reached up and hit him on the nose.

"I'm not actually a dog, you know," Tommy muttered and rubbed his nose. He sat back with his arms around his curled up legs and glared at Merton with his chin on his knees. It wasn't that he was sulking, because that wouldn't be sexy.

"You're sulking," Merton said. "It's not sexy."

"It's just a little bite," Tommy wheedled. He reached out and ran a hand up and down the alabaster column of Merton's throat. Merton shivered. "Mert, come _on_. Don't tell me you've never heard of hickeys."

"I'd appreciate not getting one from a werewolf, thank you very much," Merton said.

"It's not like it'll turn you. And I seem to remember a time you would have loved to be a werewolf." Tommy wasn't above using dirty tactics.

"I'm not showing up for work with a bite the size of Texas on my neck," Merton said. "I thought we talked about this—"

"You bruise easily," Tommy repeated in a bored sing-song voice. Merton always said that like it was a bad thing. "And turtlenecks are not business appropriate attire." Merton had been much more fun before he had gone career.

"Stupid possessive werewolves," Merton muttered.

"You love it," Tommy said and grabbed the back of Merton's neck to pull him into a kiss.

Merton made a pleased sound and kissed him back. "No hickeys," he reminded Tommy and then stuck a hand down Tommy's pants. Tommy suddenly forgot what they'd been talking about.

The bad thing about fighting dirty, Tommy thought as he watched Merton nod off into a post-coital doze later, was that Merton was a lot better at it than he was. Tommy tried to steal in a nip as soon as Merton was unconscious but was met by the flat of Merton's hand against his face.

"Nnnoo hickeys," Merton mumbled in his sleep. And then perplexingly, "Guhh, get your hands off me, you damn dirty ape."

Tommy would have been offended at that last comment if Merton hadn't made him sit through a _Planet of the Apes_ marathon last year.

"Do you know you quote Charlton Heston films when you talk in your sleep?" Tommy asked him a few days later over breakfast. "I don't remember you doing that in college."

"Mm," Merton said. "It only happens when I sleep well. It's some kind of REM cycle thing."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Tommy replied and grinned when Merton blushed.

Sometimes Merton quoted other things, for which Tommy was grateful because Merton had accidentally spoiled _Ben-Hur_ for him. ("Oh come on," Merton said when Tommy complained. "Like you would have watched it anyway.") Sometimes when Tommy got him really riled up, he talked Kubrick. Tommy once made him come three times in one night and was jolted awake at three in the morning when Merton sat up in bed and shouted, "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" and then fell back down with a snore.

 

"It has occurred to me that you've become a lot more wolfy since we moved out here," Merton said one lazy Saturday morning. He was sitting on one end of the couch with a book, and Tommy was taking up the rest of the space with his feet on the armrest and his head in Merton's lap. Merton was running his fingernails against his scalp, and Tommy was absolutely definitely _not_ purring.

He and the wolf felt safe and content, something that was becoming the norm nowadays, much to Tommy's surprise. High school and even college had been a constant uphill battle with Tommy wanting to squeeze himself into a normal life and the wolf wanting to stretch out and hunt and run. They had never settled into a mutual stalemate like this.

"Mmm?" Tommy said. The sound was muted and mellow against the solid warmth of Merton's thigh. He rolled over on his back and sighed as Merton rubbed at his throat and stomach. He might have melted a little more against Merton's leg, but that was between him and his skeleton.

"Never mind," Merton said, and he sounded like he was holding back a smile. "Forget I said anything. You are one-hundred percent normal. I'm sure no one will notice the difference at our high-school reunion next month."

Tommy was suddenly not relaxed. " _What_?" he demanded and sat up. "When? How?"

"They sent the letter to your old Pleasantville address, and your mom oh so helpfully passed it along." Merton held up the envelope, and Tommy snatched it out of his hands.

"Shit," he said. "Why hasn't my mom called about this yet? How long are we staying? What am I even going to wear?"

"Easy there, Cinderella," Merton said. "Do you even want to go?"

Tommy blinked. "What are you talking about? Of course I want to go. It will be great to go back and see everybody."

"Uh huh," Merton said. "And who exactly is everybody? Name one person."

"Lori?"

"We see her all the time," Merton said. "Thanksgiving, Christmas, Talk Like a Pirate Day."

"So that's why she had that speech impediment and an eyepatch," Tommy said. "I just thought she had a root canal done or something."

"I don't even want to know where you get your teeth cleaned," Merton said with a look of horror.

"I want to go, okay?" Tommy said. "You had it rough in high school." Merton opened his mouth, and Tommy touched a finger against his lips. "I know you did. When I walked through the hallways, I always heard them wondering why someone like me was hanging out with someone like you."

"For my sparkling wit and conversation, of course," Merton said. "Not to mention my dashing good looks."

Tommy laughed. "Not to mention," he agreed. "And I want to show them that they were wrong and you're amazing, and that I was the lucky one for getting to be your best friend."

Merton looked overwhelmed. "Oh. Well." He cleared his throat. "You know that, and…now _I_ know you know that. So what does anyone else matter? It's not important."

"It's important to _me_ ," Tommy insisted.

"You can't make me go," Merton told him and crossed his arms.

 

"I can't believe you're making me go," Merton groaned from the passenger seat as they pulled into the Courtyard Marriott. A banner hanging over the door proclaimed Pleasanvtille High School Five Year Reunion. Merton looked at the people milling around the parking lot and closed his eyes like they had personally offended him. And who knew, maybe they had. Tommy realised he didn't know much about Merton's high school career before they had met. Merton was uncharacteristically tight-lipped whenever Tommy asked.

Tommy stared at Merton's pale tense profile and reached out to cup his face. "Come here," he murmured. Merton sighed and leaned awkwardly over the console to enfold himself in Tommy's arms.

"Get it over with," he said, even thought Tommy knew he loved to be scent-marked. Merton still wouldn't let him leave any visible marks, and how else was Tommy supposed to let everyone know that Merton was _his_?

Tommy stuck his nose under Merton's ear and breathed him in. When they had first started dating, Merton had been embarrassed that Tommy insisted on scent-marking him whenever they left the house for class or even a slice of pizza, and he doused himself with cologne to cover it up. Tommy had been unhappy but tolerant until the day he lost Merton in the middle of a crowded mall and almost passed out from hyperventilation before Merton found him again.

"I couldn't smell you," Tommy had blurted out. "I thought I'd lost you."

Merton never wore cologne again. Now he smelled like soap, shampoo, and aftershave. Too much like himself, so Tommy rubbed his face against Merton's hair. Merton had stopped gelling his hair to death out of consideration for Tommy's obsession with it.

"Not that I'm keen on this reunion or anything," Merton's voice floated up from Tommy's collarbone. "But I would appreciate not being the last people to show up."

"We'll be fashionably late," Tommy corrected and straightened the lapel of Merton's jacket. He was wearing a black shirt underneath with a stylised skull, some loud white Japanese print, and 'The Clash' at the top in tiny print.

"The clash what?" Tommy asked, and some of the tension drained from Merton's shoulders just as Tommy hoped it would.

"Oh Tommy, my darling Tommy," Merton said with a theatrical sigh. He actually got out of the car with no fuss, and Tommy began to hope they would get through this reunion with minimal incident. He should have known his life always had a proverbial bucket of water on top of the door.

The trouble started when they found out Lori had ditched them to attend a Flaming Tricycles concert the next town over.

"The Flaming whats?" Tommy had resigned himself early to knowing nothing about Merton's musical tastes.

"They're a local band," Merton said. "It means they named themselves by sticking a random adjective and noun together, and sometimes they have a tambourine player."

He showed Tommy a grainy picture Lori had sent them on his Blackberry of herself screaming and flashing a rock fist next to a group of bored neo-hippies. Tommy still couldn't get over the fact that Merton and Lori's phones had cameras. That could take pictures. And send them through email. On a phone. Tommy dismissed it out of hand as another tech craze that would die out after making money off suckers like Merton and Lori, who worshipped it. Next, someone would try to sell him a phone that was also a MapQuest that was also a Walkman. Tommy wasn't an idiot.

"Sounds cool," he said absently and paused to high five yet another member of the football team. Most of the people they had met at the reunion had recognised him on sight. He wished he could say the same about them, but he seemed to have gone through a period of amnesia between high school graduation and now, because he found himself nodding inanely along with a woman who was reminiscing about a dance he had apparently _escorted her to_ freshman year.

Everyone ignored Merton.

Who is your friend, they asked Tommy when they absolutely had to, and Tommy wondered if they were really trying to pull a 'Merton Dingle, what Merton Dingle?' gambit when Merton was right _there_. It was petty, it was _stupid_ , and godammit, they were all supposed to be mature adults by now. Merton was being a really good sport about it, and Tommy was mean enough for the both of them.

"What's the matter with you?" Merton hissed when Tommy almost snapped at a student council member for asking Tommy if he was enjoying the reunion. "I thought you wanted to come here."

Tommy squeezed Merton's hand. "I'm sorry," he said. "But how can you stand these people not talking to you like this?"

Merton shrugged. "Nothing unusual. You have to stop letting them get to you, or they'll ruin your entire evening."

"You've been drinking, haven't you?" Tommy said suspiciously.

"What? No, of course not," Merton said and then hiccupped.

"Some boyfriend you are. Get me one of whatever you got," Tommy said and pulled Merton towards the bar.

"Um," Merton started. "Maybe this would be a bad time to tell you—"

The bartender turned around to get their order.

Tommy blinked. "Gil?"

"Tommy?" Gil beamed and offered him a hand. "Hey, Merton mentioned you were here. No hard feelings, huh? Gin and tonic on the house."

Tommy was immediately suspicious. "What are you doing at a high school reunion?"

Gil served Tommy's drink on top of a paper napkin that said Syndicate Catering: Taking Over the Culinary World. Tommy stared at it. "Catering? Seriously?" he asked.

"And we volunteer on the weekends with disadvantaged were-youth," Gil said. He held up a tray. "Muffin?"

"As a bar snack?" Tommy asked and then bit into one. " _Mmgh._ "

"Tasty, right?" Gil looked proud. "Where's your third musketeer?"

"Mmh-hmg."

"Yeah? I heard they were pretty good. Especially the tambourine player."

"Hmng."

"Oh and hey, just an observation? I think that woman is hitting on your mate."

"Mgh." Tommy took another bite of the muffin. Then almost spat it out and wheeled around.

Bonnie Fitzgerald, who had been the president of the yearbook staff and one of Merton's daily tormentors, had pulled Merton aside and was talking to him. Whole complete sentences, and she was _smiling_.  Tommy felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.

"Nah," he said, going for casual, but it sounded strangled. "I'm sure Bonnie's just…apologising for making Merton's life hell."

But then Bonnie put a hand on Merton's sleeve, and Tommy teleported to his side. "Hi, Mert," he said and slung an arm around Merton's shoulders. He turned so he was crowding Bonnie away, but she just turned neatly to Merton's other side and sidled close again.

"Where have you been hiding your friend, Tommy?" she asked.

Oh.

_Oh._

They didn't remember him. The student body had been treating Merton like a stranger because he was a stranger. Because _nobody remembered him_. Tommy was torn between laughter and anger. He was about to clarify that Merton was a lot more than a friend, but then Merton's fingers pressed a tight warning against his back.

And fine, Tommy understood that, but it didn't mean he had to like it. He turned the gin and tonic glass so that the smudge of his mouth on the glass was facing Merton.  "You want?"

Merton eyed him like he had grown three heads but took the glass. He drank from Tommy's side. Tommy smothered a small crow of victory and darted his eyes to Bonnie, but she wasn't looking at him.

"So, where are you from?" she asked and proceeded to pump Merton for information about his job, life, and romantic entanglements. Merton answered all of these briefly and with raised eyebrows. He was probably still trying to figure out why she was talking to him. Tommy seethed quietly next to him.

"Right, great. Bye," he said and steered Merton away when she began to press for his number.

"Tommy, what is going on?" Merton said in his ear.

"I hate this place, let's leave." Tommy was already running his hands over the sleeve of Merton's jacket where Bonnie had touched it. "I think Roman Holiday is on tv right now. You want to see Roman Holiday? Do you like Rome? Let's go to Italy. I can learn Italian. Do you think tortellini looks like belly buttons?"

"Who are you right now?" Merton demanded. "Are you crazy? Are you a crazy person?"

Tommy threw up his hands. "She was flirting with you! It was not cool!"

Merton barked out an incredulous laugh. "Flirting with me? That woman put gum in my chair every single day she sat behind me in geometry class. I hardly think—"

But then another woman turned around as they brushed past and said, "Tommy, did you bring a new friend to the reunion?"

And the vicious waterwheel of Tommy's personal hell kept turning. He stayed glued to Merton's side the entire time, where he had first-row seats to people hitting on Merton shamelessly, but it was better than staying away where Tommy couldn't control when people touched him. Merton did his best to avoid them, but his hands and the arches of his wrists stank of foreign scents where a handshake had been too lingering. It was driving Tommy crazy. This shit didn't happen with werewolves—scent-marking was both subtle and glaringly obvious, and werewolves had a strong code when it came to mates. The human equivalent had too many words.

Merton was on his way to being blind drunk because people kept buying him drinks that he was too polite to turn down, and he was under the misinformed assumption that he had a good tolerance. Tommy was driving, so he was sober and miserable. Gil kept sending sympathetic Shirley Temples his way, which made Tommy feel worse.

"I think I've grown," Merton said, sagging against Tommy's chest and smelling wrong wrong _wrong_. "Used to be, I would have marched you up on stage and bragged to the entire school that we were together."

Tommy stared at him for a long moment and then grabbed his arm. "Come with me."

"Wait." Merton blinked. "What?"

"You're a genius," Tommy told him and clambered onstage to wrest the mike away from the tall burly rugby captain, who was MCing for the evening.

"Hey," the captain said and made a grab for the microphone.

Tommy held it out of reach and gave him a murderous look. "Back. Off."

The guy backed off. People were beginning to quiet and turn to the stage in confusion.

Tommy tapped the microphone. "Excuse me, everyone. I have an important announcement."

"What the fuck are you doing?" Merton hissed and tried to pull his hand away.

Tommy tightened his grip. "I'm Tommy Dawkins," he said. "And this is Merton Dingle, and we're in love. That means he's taken, because he's _mine_. So all of you people that are trying to get into his pants," –Bonnie Fitzgerald, the flute section from the marching band, and the rugby captain had the grace to look guilty— "Can just go to hell."

Tommy marched Merton out of the hotel without another word, dumped him into the car, and drove off like James Bond.

 

Tommy was doing 90 miles per hour on the highway and manoeuvring like a three-legged ox. His entire body felt hot and itchy like he had the flu, and his canines were half out.

"Tommy, pull over." Concern and alcohol was rolling off Merton in waves.

"Not now." Tommy sounded like he had been gargling glass. He squeezed the steering wheel till his knuckles ached and his claws gouged the plastic. He didn't even bother trying to retract them, he was too far gone. He hadn't lost control this badly since he was a teenager.

"You're weaving in the lane," Merton protested. "I'll drive."

"You've been drinking." Other people's drinks, Tommy wanted to add. He tried to correct the car.

"Is this heavy breathing thing a yoga technique or what?" Merton said.

Tommy tried to block it out. Merton's voice was clanging around in his head and making it ache, making Tommy want him so desperately that he could barely see. He wanted to wrap himself around Merton until every inch of his clear porcelain skin was pink and tender with stubble and teeth marks. He wanted to open Merton up and climb inside till he couldn't tell where his spine ended and Merton's began and their rib cages curled around each other in the most intimate conjugal embrace.

They missed the exit to Tommy's house. Tommy knew Merton's question before he opened his mouth, and he jabbed a finger at Merton's phone. "Call my mom and tell her we'll be there in the morning."

"What?" Merton fumbled with the tiny keys on his Blackberry. "We can't ditch your parents!"

"Your family is away for the weekend, right?" Tommy turned towards Merton's house without waiting for an answer.

"Yes? Why are we driving to my house?"

"Because I am not doing this in the car."

"Doing wha—" Merton's eyes fell to the front of Tommy's jeans. "Oh."

"Oh," Tommy agreed. It came out in a low growl, and Merton shivered.

"Are…" Merton marshalled his voice. "Are we really skipping your family dinner to have sex?"

"Yes."

"Tommy, that's crazy." Merton reached out to grab his hand, and the slightest brush of his fingers made Tommy's nerve endings go up like fireworks.

He made a sound like he had been punched, and the car jerked. "Please. Don't. Don't touch me."

Merton slowly moved away. He tucked his arms and legs close to his body so he was smaller in Tommy's peripheral vision. "Okay," he whispered. "Okay."

Tommy concentrated on getting them to the Dingles' house alive while Merton called his house and made up a bullshit excuse about falling asleep while watching movies in the Lair. Merton could lie like a pro after years of covering up Tommy's wolfy exploits. It was incredibly sexy. Everything about Merton was appealing right now in the dark cramped car with Tommy's senses going into overdrive: Merton's elbows, the backs of his knees, the divot under his nose.

Tommy idled in the driveway and tried to breathe while Merton tried his old house key. He could smell gasoline and motor oil, the neighbour's fresh cut grass, and his own sweat.  He stank of fear and worry and ugly possessive jealousy. Merton fumbled with the door—it would be just like Becky to change the locks—but then he was inside, and Tommy was out of the car like a shot.

The door closed behind them, and they fumbled with their coats and shoes in the dim foyer. Merton unlaced his Converse with all the problem solving skills of eight beers, so Tommy crouched down to help him. He made the mistake of looking up in the middle to Merton's parted mouth and dilated pupils, and then Tommy practically yanked him out of his shoes and into the Lair.

"Florals," Merton mourned as they crashed into the refurbished basement. "They did over my beautiful Lair in florals."

Tommy shoved him down onto the bed and turned away to tear at his own clothes. His claws clipped at his skin and drew blood, and his entire lizard brain was screaming now now now. He crawled naked on top of Merton and felt the bunch and ripple of muscles in his thighs and shoulders. Merton was still sprawled entirely dressed on the bed, and he was looking at Tommy with something like awe. Tommy tasted the familiar intoxicating tang of his arousal and thought _mate_ , but then he smelled Merton's blood pumping under his skin and thought _prey_ until they were both muddled in his head, and he didn't know what he would do with Merton when he finally got him. Whether he would fuck him stupid or rip out his throat.

It should have sent up red flags in the primitive part of Merton's brain that said predator predator. Run, because you are soft and delicious.

Merton didn't run. He met Tommy's crazed eyes and lifted his chin, and then Tommy was on top of him. His teeth on Merton's lips, a leg snaked under Merton's bend knee to pin him down, and his hands clamped down on Merton's hips hard enough to leave bruises. Merton's skin glowed creamy pale in the moonlight, and he looked like a dish of ice cream, like a feast all laid out for the taking. All the better to gobble you up, Tommy thought hysterically and wanted to eat Merton whole, wanted to devour every last scrap of flesh and bone till he was suffused with him. Like Merton's body was the sacrament and his hot heady blood was wine.

Then Merton touched his face with gentle fingers and said, " _Tommy_ ," and suddenly Tommy was young again with graceless human elbows and knees, and he would never hurt Merton ever. Tommy pulled him close and kissed him and kissed him and put his lips to Merton's hands, his throat.

"Hey," Merton said and curled his hands around Tommy's shoulders to push him away.

"Please, babe?" Tommy asked and was ashamed at the high needy whine in his voice. "Please please please?" He sucked at the curve of Merton's neck just underneath his jaw and was careful not to use teeth. " _Please_?"

Merton gasped like someone had knocked the breath from him and grabbed at Tommy's shoulders. "Yes," he said. "Yes, okay."

 

In the daylight, Merton's neck looked like a murder scene. He burst out of the bathroom and screamed wordlessly at Tommy for two minutes straight with violent and surprisingly eloquent hand gestures before running back in and slamming the door.

Tommy chose the lesser of two evils and curled up with a bowl of frosted mini-wheats to wait him out. "But you liked it, right?" he shouted through the door. "I distinctly remember you liking it. Unless you were shouting 'yes, do me harder' ironically."

He could practically hear Merton's fiery blush. "That's not the point!" Merton yelled back. "I have to visit your mom looking like I had brunch with the Boston Strangler. Oh, and don't think I forgot your Me Tarzan, Merton Jane routine at the reunion yesterday."

"Hey, at least everyone from old Pleasantville High knows we're together."

"Tommy, people in _space_ know we're together, because they can probably see this casualty of war you've left on my neck." Merton punched the door. "I hate you."

Tommy spat out his cereal and roared with laughter until Merton finally opened the door and tried to kick him in the head.

 

Tommy put on _London Calling_ on the drive to his parent's house, and Merton made a satisfied sound and slumped down further in the passenger seat. He had calmed down considerably after stealing the rest of Tommy's mini-wheats.

"I knew you were just playing dumb," he said.

"Sure, buddy," Tommy said and patted his hand.


End file.
